Tag: Diary Style

I spent the first days of this week on the windblown roof of a sky scraper. It was so tall that the air felt thin, and my stomach was in free fall. The sky scraper was my heart. Most of the time my brain rules my heart. It translates emotion into logic, even in moments when emotion is appropriate. Seven days ago, I heard these words pertaining to my father:

This lemon coconut cake is a marker. It is incredibly easy to make. You melt the butter and mix it with all the rest of the ingredients and bake it. The icing is also simple enough for a young child to make. And yet, four or five weeks ago – making this cake would have been impossible for me. I would have struggled to concentrate for long enough to read this beginner’s recipe. I’d have gone to the pantry or the fridge unable to remember what I was there to get – not just once, but again and again and again. I would have forgotten to add at least one of the ingredients, or to turn the oven on. And if I’d persisted with the process of trying to make this cake, I would have grown unbelievably frustrated with myself. If I had no experience with the signs that comprise my Bipolar 1 Disorder, I would have beaten myself to a pulp over my inability to perform a simple task. A task I could normally perform while on the phone, and with my eyes almost closed.

Like this:

Imagine your life is a board game. Part of how well you do is down to skill, part is down to luck. Through sheer bad luck you land on a square that says: Mental illness – severe enough to need hospitalisation. You must exit the game immediately and sit out for an unknown length of time.

So, as of right now you have to stop work, and no you can’t give your boss any idea when you will be back. You have to move out of home and stop looking after your children, and no you can’t tell them when you will be home again. If you have a partner, any jobs you have been doing to run the household or look after the children will be handed to them. Too bad if they already have a full-time job. Everything in your life stops. For everyone else the game continues. Continue reading “The Rebuild”

Like this:

The manic symptoms have almost all subsided, probably due to pushing the Lithium dose up. And so far, no signs of Lithium toxicity. I am now waking up every 3-4 hours for more medication instead of every 1-2, which is a huge relief.

So where does that leave me? Fixed? All better? If only it were that simple.

In the first instance it leaves me absolutely exhausted. The energy credit card the manic symptoms racked up with insomnia, over-exercising, not being able to sit still or shut up, and thoughts firing for 23 hours a day, is demanding payment.

I didn’t have to wait long at all after I last posted for further symptoms to develop. Manic symptoms. Neurological symptoms. Some might argue with the ‘neurological’ description for a mental illness. But when you develop the short-term memory of an advanced stage Alzheimer’s patient, the attention span of a toddler, and irritability so pathological it hurts (feels like you’ve been coated in oil, rolled in sand, rubbed down with a towel, and then someone sprays lemon juice all over you.) virtually overnight, it feels neurological.

I am in hospital, waiting for this monster to decide. Which way will it go? Mania and worse, or depression and worse. Yes, it gets worse than both of those. Mania can tip into psychosis. Depression can turn catatonic. At least it can for me. We are nowhere near either…yet. But it can happen within hours. I’ve learnt from bitter, repeated experience… and if it does, this will be the last you’ll hear from me for a while.